Roy Kinyon.
Over the next month, The Buffalo News will continue to tell the stories of some of Western New York’s veterans who served in the armed services in World War II and beyond.
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Roy E. Kinyon saw both the majestic and the morose aboard the USS Shoshone.
The Niagara County native witnessed the iconic moment when Marines raised the U.S. flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
He also watched fallen Marines buried at sea in the Pacific Ocean.
The World War II veteran, who enlisted in the Navy in November 1942 at age 20, turns 99 today.
“I seen a lot of good things and a lot of bad,” Kinyon said.
The Shoshone, an attack cargo ship, carried smaller boats used to transport Marines and supplies.
Kinyon’s job aboard the ship was maintaining and repairing engines. In this three-plus years in the Navy, he rose to the rank of chief motor machinist’s mate.
He was among 14 chiefs on the Shoshone, which felt pretty packed when the 366-person crew was joined by 350 Marines and their 15 German shepherds.
Born in a farmhouse in Appleton, what Kinyon remembers most about the first day of the invasion of Iwo Jima is the bullets flying overhead, he said.
A kamikaze pilot attacked the boat just ahead of the Shoshone during the invasion.
“Boy, was that a blast,” he said of the explosion.
The Marines who went ashore the first day could barely get off the island’s black beaches, Kinyon said.
On the second day of fighting, Marines used blowtorches to clear tunnels of Japanese troops. After a scorching fire, they would send the dogs in.
As a young man, Kinyon grew up on a farm and excelled as an athlete. He grew up playing sports with his older brother, Ralph.
In 1941, while playing for Barker High School, Roy Kinyon was a two-sport star. In baseball, he led the Niagara-Orleans League in both batting average and, in basketball, scoring average, according to newspaper clippings his mother, Jennie, kept. He was captain of the baseball and basketball teams that each won the league championship that year.
Before he enlisted, he played semi-professional baseball for a team in Olcott and was invited for a tryout with the Buffalo Bisons.
While Roy Kinyon picked the Navy, his brother signed up for the Army Air Forces.
Roy Kinyon, 99, a Navy vet who served in WWII and recalls hitting the beach transporting Marines during the the Battle of Iwo Jima, talks about how he repeatedly prayed the Rosary as the invasion continued. This was his grandfather’s rosary set.
Robert Kirkham
Roy Kinyon’s talent and love of sports helped him get through some of the monotony of his time in the service, his family said. While at a training base in Florida in 1944, he convinced the base commander to let him try out for a baseball team comprised of professionals and college players.
He made the Fort Pierce Commandos, playing left field and second base, and traveled around the state playing other military teams.
He got back from the war in 1946. The following year, he broke his leg in a fall from a piece of equipment while at a job in Barker. He spent three months recovering at Buffalo General Hospital, which is where he met a nurse named Theresa.
They got married in July 1948, had four children and were together 64 years. Theresa Kinyon died in 2013.
Roy Kinyon now has 14 great-grandchildren.
He spent 35 years working at Harrison Radiator in Lockport. He prays the rosary daily and remains an avid sports fan.
During the Battle of Iwo Jima, the crew of the Shoshone ferried food and ammunition for the Marines between the ship and the island “all day long,” Kinyon said.
It was quite a moment when the Marines raised the flag on the fifth day of the battle.
“That’s when I had chills going up and down my back when all the ships started blowing their horns,” he said. “It was unreal.”
Roy Kinyon, 99, displays an image collection of his grandchildren at his Lockport home.
